RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT REACTS TO EXECUTIONS IN GROZNY…

A second round of executions in Grozny has elicited an immediate and negative response from the Russian government. On the same day that the executions took place the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office said its stance against public executions remained unchanged and that a new criminal case could be opened after due verification. The leaders and deputies of the Duma, meanwhile, laid their ideological disagreements aside and united in assessing the executions as an open challenge to Russia; they called for the "moral isolation" of the mutinous republic. Russian deputy prime minister Ramazan Abdulatipov said public executions violate the norms of international law "which the Chechen leaders love to talk about." Kommersant-daily reported that Security Council deputy secretary Boris Berezovsky, "who until recently was considered the best friend of the Chechen people," said Moscow "had a duty to use its influence on Chechnya to put an end to the executions." (Itar-Tass, September 18; Kommersant-daily, September 19)

…While Ignoring Those in Dagestan.